Monday, October 23, 2017

Trudeau Liberals Headed for the Garbage Shoot?

...In upcoming weeks, [Sears Canada] workers will receive letters from Morneau-Shepell, the actuarial and pension management company that provides services to the Sears Canada plan. Those letters will update retirees on what is left [of their pension fund] after Lampert [the American investor who controlled Sears Canada] and others got their money.

Morneau-Shepell’s services will suck even more money from the Sears fund. “Even the envelopes and stamps will be paid from workers’ pension money,” ... Under Canadian law, workers and retirees are last in line for their own money. It clearly irritates Duvall.

But it benefits Finance Minister Bill Morneau who controls about one million shares of Morneau-Shepell, although [he] announced on Thursday his intention to sell them. That holding paid a $64,000 dividend cheque — monthly. Prior to election Morneau owned about 2.25 million shares in the company, worth about $47 million at today’s price.
... Before entering politics, Morneau encouraged governments to push workers out of more secure defined benefit pension plans into riskier “target” plans. It shrinks the middle class — but can pay off for Morneau. Target plans need far more actuarial services of the type Morneau-Shepell provides.

He doesn’t need to lobby now. Finance Minister Morneau has tabled Bill C-27 allowing federal employers to convert to target plans and creating more opportunities for Morneau-Shepell. The price of Morneau-Shepell shares have jumped 31% since Morneau became Finance Minister.

Certainly the NSP's choice of an unelected, bearded, be-turbaned Sikh, the descendant of an anti-British rebel, who, in his Wikipedia image, reminds one of Gordon Sinclair's description of the Sikh male, as the "fightingest man in India", seems an odd choice for a party heavily dependent on Quebec a province noted for its determination to retain its 400-year-old French heritage.

As for Sheer, well at least he has five kids, which I think is good in a country with a severely depressed fertility rate, a legacy of Trudeau I's policies on divorce and abortion, a legacy only enhanced by the spendthrift ways of Trudeau II, which are forcing young Canadians to chose between a middle-class life style or having a family and hence the necessity of paying a huge proportion of their incomes for a family home of which prices have been wildly inflated as a result of failed financial regulation.